Hullo Wim,
Many thanks for your thought provoking response. I shall endeavour to
respond to some of your points, though as you well know we suffer from
limitations of time to do the work needed in such a dense area.
Wim: "As I understand Wilber's work, it is primarily a very thorough
exploration of the whole breadth, height, depth,chronology (and maybe even
more dimensions) of consciousness. Consciousness is something he ascribes
not only to human beings but to all types of "individual holons" (quarks,
atoms, molecules, cells, organisms etc.) and -in the form of distributed or
intersubjective consciousness- to all types of "social holons"(galaxies,
planets, crystals, ecosystems, families, tribes,
communities etc.)."
You contrast that with my earlier emphasis on "individual organisms", where
I asert that quality is discriminated by organisms and is meaningless at,
for example, the level of atoms.
When you look more closely at Wilber's work, I would suggest that
consciousness is perhaps not the best word to describe the interiority of
holons. He uses the term 'subjective interior' in places, and certainly in
human beings I would equate this with consciousness, but in "Sex, Ecology,
Spirituality" he acknowledges the problems that can be created by ascribing
'consciousness' to quarks, for example, and is happy to use Whitehead's
term 'prehension' at that level. He emphasizes "that it does not really
matter, as far as I am concerned, how far down (or not) you wish to push
consciousness." (SES p112) Rather, he stresses that "consciousness is
synonymous with depth", and the distinction between interiority and
exteriority. I tend to side with "most orthodox theorists [who] don't really
see consciousness emerging until primates and usually humans." (p112) So we
are really talking here about our definition of consciousness. I would
rather use interiority or depth as the broad spectrum terms, and
consciousness as the higher level emergent.
In the article you refer to he explores the different meanings of wholes or
parts when describing individual holons and social holons. This is very
useful for critiquing Pirsig's 'Giant'. He quite specifically states that
social holons do not have subjective consciousness, and that "society is not
a bigger organism", not a "Leviathan", which is about as close as you can
get to the 'Giant'. He makes the critical distinction that individuals are
not just parts of societies, but members of the social holon. The social
holon does not transcend and include individual holons, but transcends and
includes the previous levels of social holons. And artifacts, like the
physical infrastructure of New York that so impressed Pirsig, are insentient
holons, assembled from without as components or pieces of the larger
structure. He makes clear that the universe is constructed from sentient
holons, whose evolutionary potential is enfolded from within.
3dwave wrote: "The trap that Phaedrus, and many of us, falls into is trying
to immediately apply metaphysical insights to solve all philosophical
problems without development of the other philosophical systems."
I agree. Certainly with morals.
Wim: "I am disappointed with Wilber's thinking -as reproduced by Frank
Visser- in that it is based in a metaphysics which presupposes and therefore
takes beyond the realm of rational testing a lot of the most controversial
parts: the existence of a spectrum of consciousness that is rooted in
different irreducable spheres of reality."
I am not quite sure what to make of this statement. Wilber specifically
asserts that the spectrum of consciousness is testable, and I quoted him to
that effect in my post of 30.10. This to me is one of the strengths of his
position. I am also unsure what you mean by 'different irreducable spheres
of reality'. This seems to me foreign to Pirsig's thought. Perhaps we are
just getting mired in language again.
I liked your clear exposition of epistemology, ontology and deontology. I
agree that "Pirsig's metaphysics can be summarized in: 'We can know by
experiencing value, we can know static patterns of value and the dynamic
value of changing those patterns and we know what we should do by ...
experiencing value, for evidently no-one would want to take a lower value
course of action if a higher value course of action is available.'"
I also agree that the problem emerges when 'knowing' the higher value might
only emerge a hundred years after the event, as Pirsig suggests. The
immediacy of dynamic value is in fact no guide to behaviour at all, for
there is no doubt the bully finds value in inflicting pain.
And most ethical or moral issues are issues just because there are
conflicting values involved, and if it was so clear which was the higher
value we would not have an issue.
Wim: I propose another deontology: 'We know what we should do by
experiencing Meaning.' We can evaluate alternative courses of action by
their "fit" into the story of "our" life which can be understood as a part
of the bigger stories of the groups we identify with. The best course of
action is the one that makes our life into the most Meaningful chapter in a
story."
I also have seized on the term 'meaning' as the key to value choices.
However I am concerned that your deontology is too oriented to the social
realm, and 'the bigger stories of the groups we identify with'. I would hope
that our exploration of meaning would quickly take us beyond the available
stories, though I might concede that all such exploration is done in
community. Perhaps I am hair-splitting.
But I like your emphasis on what I previously described as "the existential
progress of my experiential life". I think Pirsig hardly addresses this, and
this is one reason I wish he had expanded on his Karmic garbage comments
near the end of 'Lila'.
Wim: "I think the arbitrariness of the number of levels and the large number
itself is a weakness in Wilber's thinking."
I cannot agree. Wilber provides criteria for distinguishing levels, though I
have not time now to look these up. He would argue there is a qualitative
shift between levels. Indeed, I would argue that the mark of a change of
level is the change in what now counts as quality. This in my view is miles
away from what I see as Pirsig's reification of quality into some abstract
fundamental character of the universe. I see quality change and emerge at
each unfolding into a new level of experience, and I liked Dave's wording of
this "as your static patterns evolve your view of the dynamic changes." This
puts it very well.
I have already spent more time than I intended on this, but I am still
interested in pursuing our exploration of epistemology, ontology and
deontology. I am sorry if this has taken on an air of defending Wilber,
which I do want to avoid.
Regards,
John B
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